


our bodies, possessed by light

by jublis



Series: tell me we'll never get used to it [2]
Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: 1960s, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Because fuck canon, Canon Era, Gen, M/M, Mentions of homophobia, Neil Lives!, Post-Canon, Queer History, Queer Themes, also todd is trans in this. it's not really mentioned but i want u to know, estabilished relationship - Freeform, kind of todd-centric, neil's father should be its own warning but he's only mentioned briefly, this is for molly because i love her, this is my first work ever so please be gentle, tw for the q slur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:02:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jublis/pseuds/jublis
Summary: All in all, Charlie himself seemed to be the least surprised out of all of them when he heard about what happened.“Todd Anderson, criminal mastermind,” he would say, grinning like a madman, for years to come. “Beat me to it!”Todd was not at the wrong place at the wrong time, nor was he drunk, nor did he commit a felony, though he was, indeed, not yet thirty. He was twenty-seven, and he punched a cop in the face.
Relationships: Charlie Dalton/Knox Overstreet, Todd Anderson/Neil Perry, barely there but it's important to me that you know it's a thing
Series: tell me we'll never get used to it [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639726
Comments: 39
Kudos: 168





	our bodies, possessed by light

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Tiếng Việt available: [cơ thể ta, ám bởi ánh sáng](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25988725) by [gorgonlovebot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgonlovebot/pseuds/gorgonlovebot)



> hi!!! this is my first ever work on ao3 and in like any fandom ever sdhjjsn so please be gentle! i loved writing this so much, and todd is such a special character to me, and i'm kind of a queer history nerd, so this is all of my personality in one place. enjoy!! (if you leave a comment, i'll cry.)
> 
> edit as of august 19, 2020: this work has been translated to viatnamese!! i know! what the hell! i've linked it to this fic, so you can check it out if you want!! <3

Todd Anderson was arrested on the night of June 28, 1969.

Safe to say, no one imagined he’d be the first of his friends to earn a criminal record. Meeks thought it would be Pitts, for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Knox was convinced Charlie would commit a felony before he reached thirty, and if not a felony, Neil was sure Charlie would at least spend a night in jail once, and Pitts didn’t trust Neil to keep out of trouble during a night out drinking. No one bet on Meeks, because of course they didn’t, and according to Charlie, Knox looked too much like a lost puppy to ever get in trouble with the law.

All in all, Charlie himself seemed to be the least surprised out of all of them when he heard about what happened.

“Todd Anderson, criminal mastermind,” he would say, grinning like a madman, for years to come. “Beat me to it!”

Todd was not at the wrong place at the wrong time, nor was he drunk, nor did he commit a felony, though he was, indeed, not yet thirty. He was twenty-seven, and he punched a cop in the face.

The mere fact that he was out at all that night was a surprise in itself. He and Neil had lived in New York City for nearly a decade by then, but they weren’t partying people by any measure. They owned a small apartment near Greenwich Village — close enough to be safe, but not enough to be suspicious — and were regarded as harmless by their neighbors, if a bit closed off. Of course, they were believed to be two bachelors, best friends saving money by splitting rent. If anyone noticed that their apartment was a one-bedroom, they were never bothered.

If anything, Neil was the rowdier one. He’d been steadily building up his name as a stage actor for the last few years (he worked full time at it, after the Great Waiter Fiasco of 1963), and the cast after-parties of the off-Broadway shows he was in tended to get a little wild. He’d gotten into his fair share of fights, and Todd had had to patch him up more than once. Those were the nights that tasted of cheap alcohol and blood and promises; Todd would complain, and Neil would flash a blinding, drunken smile at him, and really—it was like falling all over again.

Todd worked part-time at a publishing company, and part-time as a freelance writer. He wrote his poems — “For you," he’d whisper feverishly to Neil, late at night. “All for you, always for you.” — and went to work, and sometimes, he was invited to poetry readings (either to read, or to hear. He didn’t mind either.)

So that’s why, on June 28, Todd found himself wandering down Christopher Street. His friend, Molly, had invited him to a “Queer Poetry Slam,” and she’d put it, at her own apartment a few blocks away. Todd had stumbled out past midnight, dizzy in a way only words and Neil could make him feel, smiling at no one and whispering words of those long-dead and long-alive alike to the cold air.

Never in a million years had he imagined he’d be happy like this. Life had a funny way of proving him wrong.

The night was cold, and eerily quiet. He inhaled.

Then, the screams.

Christopher Street was burning.

For a few long moments, Todd couldn’t tell if it was with fire, or with people. He wondered if there was a difference.

“What’s happening?” Todd whispered, to himself, to no one, to anyone that could hear him. 

He needed someone to explain it to him, to tell him he’d gotten it wrong, that what he was seeing was the dream of a tired mind, a mind drunk on hope, a mind exhausted by the pretense of un-love. He’d gotten it wrong. He’d gotten it wrong. He’d let himself grow old, grow wistful.

Because what he was seeing was this:

People. Endless people, angry people, standing outside Stonewall Inn, screaming and chanting and throwing things—but not at the Inn. Not at them. _Not at us_ , Todd thought, dazed. _Because they are us. And those who are against us…_

Light flashes, red and blue. More screams.

_They’re here._

Someone stumbled to the ground next to Todd, cursing. He helped them up, noting the wig and the glitter and the too-high heels. _One of us._

“What’s happened?” He asked. The drag queen tensed, but Todd squeezed her hand, and looked at her with the most earnest look he could muster. “I’m _with_ you.”

She smiled, then, and it was bloody.

“Well, sugar,” she said in a husky voice, a lilt of exhilaration in her tone. “The revolution’s begun.”

She ran back to where she came from before Todd could even breathe. And he didn’t. And he didn’t. Until he laughed—a small, simple breath of relief—and screamed.

He ran. There was a rock in his hand, or maybe it was a brick, or maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe just his anger was enough.

But it wasn’t just his. It was theirs.

He held someone’s hand. He yelled. Dimly, he realized his face was wet, and his eyes stung, and something warm ran down his forehead and it felt like blood, and his throat was raw, but he kept speaking, kept screaming, as if he were afraid that the words would run out, as if he were afraid that if it was silent he would wake up from this wonderful, wild, terrifying dream.

Someone pushed him, and he pushed back. A woman yelled in pain next to him, and Todd whirled around to see a slip of a girl, seemingly barely in her twenties, stuck in a headlock, kicking and clawing at the arm around her. He met her eyes, and didn’t think. He punched that asshole right in the face.

Todd had never punched someone before, and he regretted it instantly. Then he realized that the guy he punched was a cop, and decided he could live with regret.

He saw the glint of handcuffs before he felt the pain of a blow to the head.

 _What would Mr. Keating think of me now?,_ he thought, half-amused and half-gone, while they dragged him away. _A man or an amoeba—finally answered._

**. . .**

Neil Perry bailed Todd Anderson out of jail on June 29, 1969.

He got the call around four A.M., and didn’t think much of it until he turned around in bed and realized Todd wasn’t next to him. By the time he answered the phone, after wrestling with his sheets for way too long, he’d worked himself up halfway to a panic, and, surprisingly enough, Todd’s words didn’t make him relax.

“You’d better come and get me,” Todd said, voice raspy. Neil could hear the chuckle in it. “They already think I’m queer, because I was there, and after the night I’ve had—when you get here, they’ll be sure of it.”

So Neil got dressed and went. He smiled politely to the cops, the way his father had taught him. He sweet-talked them into letting Todd go earlier, the way he’d learned to. He was calm and cool and collected, the exemplary alumnus from Welton, and it felt like putting on an old mask he’d hoped to have left behind in New England. He felt his father’s ghostly fingers on his neck. Neil told him to fuck off.

An exemplary alumnus, indeed, he thought, amused. Bailing out his male lover from jail, because said lover assaulted a cop at a queer riot in the heart of New York City. Welton’s prime student, valedictorian, graduated with high honors—working at an experimental theatre company maybe three times the size of his old dorm room, with all kinds of people that would make dear old Father have a heart attack on the spot. He didn’t regret a goddamn thing.

When Neil saw Todd, sitting all alone in a jail cell, he laughed.

Because Todd looked exhausted and bruised and bloody, but Jesus Christ, was that pink glitter in his hair? And Neil laughed, and Todd smiled tiredly at him, and they were the only ones in the room.

(God, he was beautiful. He always had been. It hurt, sometimes.)

“You know,” Neil says, when they’re out on the street, walking side by side through the rising sun of New York. “Out of both of us, I never thought you’d be the one to get a criminal record first.”

Todd laughs, twirling breathlessly with his arms flung out, and Neil is so, so in love.

 _“I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world!”_ he yells, unconcerned by the early hour. He takes Neil’s hand in his, out in the open, and Neil freezes, panic clawing up his throat, but Todd just looks at him, and Neil could never resist.

Todd kisses him.

And kisses him.

And kisses him.

When they break apart, Todd is crying and smiling like it’s the last chance he’ll ever get to do either. Neil’s gaze lingers on his lips, dazed, and maybe it’s a consequence of the privateness of dawn, or the sleepless night, or maybe there’s just something burning, boiling in the air, but for once, Neil couldn’t care less if anyone could see them.

“What was _that_ for?” His voice cracks when he asks, and Todd’s eyes well with fondness, or perhaps just tears.

“Because,” Todd answers, and Neil can’t begin to peel off and decipher all the things that are said in that word. “It’s started, my sweet. It’s started.”

“What’s started?”

Todd whoops, and kisses him again, for good measure. He smiles, and it’s full of light.

“The revolution.”


End file.
